‘Follow your bliss,’ they said. ‘You can’t go wrong if you follow your dreams.’

I sat here this evening looking through a years worth of documentation. Ten notebooks of garbage and evidence to the madness that occurred over the past year of my life. Not on purpose mind you. I was merely looking for lost or “vanished” passwords to get into some accounts. The harassment, the bullying, the threatening, the control. People knowing things about me that nobody should know, and the taunting and teasing about them toward me, or TO me. Knowing personal things about me. Teasing me about them. Making me do such insane stuff on promises that were never fulfilled. Stripping down for a Facebook photo, putting me on a dating site. 5000 Nigerians following me and harassing me on Facebook. Thousands of disgusting pictures sent in my fb messenger. I could go on with the list of the year’s worth of antics, but I won’t. And, I will never get down to the bottom of it either. As far as who is responsible. Who did this to me? Why was I so deserving of a years worth of hell? I almost killed myself on three occasions. Oh, I know, because I humiliated a man of pride and ego. Probably a few men, it seems. Because and But.... I don’t think any of them realized they had been having sex with a 7-year-old, every time they were having sex with me.

In this age of social media, it can be more difficult than ever to truly get a grasp on what’s real and what’s fiction. We live in an age where there is a constant lens on image. Many of us feel pressured to live up to an ideal or picture that may or may not even exist. As social creatures we seek to fit in and be a part of society; and nowadays that means participating in the portrayal of real time “living”; that is living your life through a filtered lens that the public, at large, participates in.

Everyone in their life feels lonely at least once. When you start getting this feeling called loneliness, then no matter how many people surround you, it is still felt. It seems like you have lost interest in life, and you are aimless. You feel like there is no reason for being alive and such things. So the important thing is to know the reasons why you are feeling lonely and how you can overcome it.

There are many articles on anxiety and how to understand it, learn to better cope with it, and manage it. Those words don't sit right with me because I don't want to have to manage anything that I could potentially control. I want it GONE and I believe that's very possible seeing as my unnecessary anxiety IS almost gone!

In September of 2018, I lost my emotional support animal, Rascal. Not only was Rascal my puppy that had been there for 10 years, but he had been there on nights I put blades to my skin, nights I had been molested, nights where I tried to kill myself, nights ex boyfriends would throw me down stairs, push me out of cars, and throw me to the floor, and nights where no one was there for me. Losing him was one of the biggest pains, simply because he held all of that in his small, ten pound, four-legged body. The worst part about it was, it only took him a few hours to die. We did not expect him to grow so fuckin sick in hours and I did not expect to hold my very best friend as we had to end his suffering from a silent cancer. This drove me off the rails. Who was going to let me cry on them and cheer me up at the same time? Who was going to hold my deepest secrets and not tell a soul? In October of 2018, after nights on end of college parties, drinking bottles on top of bottles, staying around friends I knew were fake but they kept it from being silent, I knew it was time. I knew that I was ready to kill myself. I had nothing. So, I disappeared with no trace. No one knew where I went, if I died, or been taken. I drove to a psychiatric hospital and checked myself in. I told myself, if I still want to kill myself after getting professional help, I can. But first, I have to try. For a suicidal person, I was quite reasonable. I knew I wanted to get better but knew that it would take a village for someone with as much trauma as me. I was fucking scared. I had never even seen a hospital specifically for psychiatric needs. I had been in and out of the Psych wing of Emergency Rooms, but never to a hospital that specializes. I was scared, but oddly excited. I WANTED to get better. I did not want to constantly feel suicidal and sickened by myself. Just barely over a month before, I had gotten raped on my BIRTHDAY.

“You look sick”

Meditation is utilized all over the planet. The purpose is to clear your mind of all thoughts and focus on being still and calm. We live in an age where sitting still in a quiet room with no distractions or technology is unheard of. Yet, our bodies need the break from the chaos. To decompress and gain an understanding of how to control our own wandering thoughts. Meditation can lead to a multitude of benefits, including:

As I sit in his office, Dr. K. I begin to think of the bullshit that got me here. Almost every time I come to these exhausting appointments, I break down. Getting help never hurt so much. The innocence taken from me, starting when I was young, could never be given back. Boys with their clammy, but still soft hands because they aren’t even old enough to truly sit before a judge on their own and not old enough for their hands to gain callus from working so hard, but old enough to know that touching little girls is... gross. I tell myself I forgive them. But is it true? Is it possible to really forgive boys who took this much from you to where when you walk in an office that society thinks is for crazy people YOU even get stared down. Bitch yes, I’m crazy. But so are you so look away from me before I use the anger that has boiled in me from tragedies like these. Tragedies that make me start to tear up to even be looked at for longer than a glimpse because I can’t fucking stand someone thinking that they have power over my body again. Tragedies that have made me this paranoid. But still, I get up, I go to work, and I make my living. My parents always fussed at me for half- assing things but what else can you do on mornings when you’ve spent the night fighting off those flashbacks that you have yet to get used to after an entire decade and longer? Sometimes, half- assing is all I have the power to do. My obsessive compulsive disorder says brushing your teeth just long enough for you to have the ability to look at the very person you are absolutely disgusted with. My obsessive compulsive disorder screams that it is not long enough to brush my teeth as long as I can stand to see my own wreckage. But my depression... see, she’s something serious. Somehow, she has that optimistic side when it comes to brushing my teeth. She comforts me, “at least you don’t have morning breath anymore. Tastes a little mintier baby girl.” She has a way of comforting me when I know I cannot put forward much. She has a good way of telling me that at least I did a little. She is the definition of manipulation. She will reel you in making you TRY the positive outlook thing, and then she’ll giggle with Anxiety, and wreck your whole fuckin day. Well... is it depression or the optimistic little girl that was never able to rise up? Does she still want to think happy thoughts to get her out of this abyss? She was so honest and gentle and sweet. By middle school, she became the kid that had to do mandatory anger management counseling. The anger harbored in her... in me, and took control. To this day, that sweet, innocent girl is still there, who has learned how to tame the anger a little more, and continues to stay honest and true. She... I mean.. I, I love endlessly. So I think it is true. I think I have forgiven them. But I have not, and never will, forget them. Forgiveness, for me, was personal. Those boys have not been seen since before I hit double digits, so what would they even gain from MY forgiveness? It was and still is, all for me. I forgive them so that I can forgive myself because in this mentality bestowed upon me... I blame myself. This is reality. No matter how many people say it’s not my fault or I could not control it, my mind will tell me that somehow my young, tiny, weak body could have done more. And I know, if the world ended today...it would be my fault.